


Serendipity

by Lukita



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-02-07
Updated: 2005-02-07
Packaged: 2017-10-21 12:46:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,678
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/225311
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lukita/pseuds/Lukita
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Done for the FMA round robin but the next person who's on the list never wrote a thing and the fic died a quiet death. Thanks to my lovely beta xkesshoux</p>
    </blockquote>





	Serendipity

**Author's Note:**

> Done for the FMA round robin but the next person who's on the list never wrote a thing and the fic died a quiet death. Thanks to my lovely beta xkesshoux

There are some things about the military that Edward Elric, the Fullmetal Alchemist, and his little brother Alphonse Elric must never know about, one of the most important being the Office Pool. Not because the staff thought a thirteen-year-old was a little too young to be gambling, (face it, for the few who knew, Fullmetal was basically gambling with his life to restore his little brother's body) but because no less than half the pool was about him.

It started out as an office in-joke of 'how long will it take Fullmetal to get into trouble this time.' Then, others got added in over the months, including 'how much damage can one brat make,' and 'how many people will mistake Alphonse as the Fullmetal Alchemist in one town.' The two attracted trouble often enough to kept the pools interesting, and there was always the long shot that they might pass a town without stirring up the residents or leaving half the place levelled.

So it was no surprise when the next brief report on the Elric brothers' whereabouts said something along the lines of, 'Fire and pitchforks were raised the second Fullmetal walked into town. The townfolks of Raysmare took exception to shortest State Alchemist.' Okay, maybe that wasn't the exact wording of the report, but it really was pretty close. The furore in the office that day, especially around First Lieutenant Hawkeye's desk, had nothing to do with how much work the staff was actually doing for the military.

-

The office was relatively quiet the next morning, most of the staff waiting for the first trickle of reports and paperwork to come in. Even when the work came in, most of the papers usually ranged from the normal, everyday requests for more paper clips to reports from field agents that would read 'everyone look your best, the Fuhrer is making a surprise visit to East City again because he thinks it's funny.' Luckily, the latter didn't happen all that often, since the Fuhrer had other cities to choose from whenever the mood struck him to pick on his subordinates.

The day passed like any other (except for a few last minute bets), and it could even be said that Mustang's crew got more work done than usual. Their patience was rewarded with another report about Fullmetal during lunch. It turned out the report was a few hours late, since there was an urgent phone call for the Colonel that morning from Fullmetal's babysitter. Or rather, it was an urgent phone call for Lieutenant Colonel Hughes, who, upon receiving the news, promptly called Colonel Mustang (at noon) to give him the field agent's report. Not without the frequent gushing over his wife and daughter, however.

The report was a bit alarming, since the agent confessed to losing sight of Fullmetal in a mob, even with his red coat and a seven foot tall brother. Now, it seemed that some never before heard of group of radicals claimed to have kidnapped Fullmetal, refusing to return him until their demands were met. However, the demands themselves (chocolates, hedgehogs, and a marching band? Who in the world would go through the trouble of kidnapping Fullmetal for something like that?) seemed a bit strange.

A collective rush to Hawkeye's desk was inevitable.

"Ten bucks for the boss being out of town before his babysitter finds him," Havoc said as he slapped the bill down on Hawkeye's desk.

Hawkeye pulled a notebook from her bottom drawer and flipped to the appropriate page. "It's 1:2 for Edward to be found while he's making a dramatic escape, 1:4 to be discovered just as he's leaving town after he's caused destruction and mayhem to the kidnappers, and I also have a 1:100 that Edward will never be found." She looked up at Havoc expectantly with a pen poised to take down his bet.

"After the boss leaves town and no destruction or mayhem," Havoc replied with a grin.

Hawkeye just gave him a look that said 'it's your money' as she jotted down his bet. "Would that be all?" she asked when Havoc made no move to leave her desk.

"And that the boss will have left town by at least tomorrow morning, if not before," Havoc added with a sly look.

"Do you want this to be on the same bet, 2nd Lieutenant Havoc?" Hawkeye asked, mildly irritated that she might have to re-calculate his bet, "or would this be a separate bet altogether?"

"Separate bet, separate bet," Havoc muttered as he pulled his wallet out and handed over another ten. Everyone knew better than to annoy Hawkeye. Havoc left to get back to work as another staff member went up to Riza's desk with a stack of files for the Colonel to sign.

-

Another urgent report was waiting for the staff the next morning at the office with an update of Fullmetal's kidnapping, (still missing) along with a not-so-urgent report that a dangerous rapist had been apprehended the previous afternoon. Hughes seemed to have no sense of priority what so ever when it came to sending reports along, or perhaps he only did that to the Colonel.

It wasn't until the daily afternoon call from the Lieutenant Colonel that the staff was informed Fullmetal had been safe and sound (and on his way back to HQ) since the previous night. For a man who passed on promotion more times than they could count, Mustang's staff was almost positive Hughes was doing it on purpose.

With the news of Fullmetal stomping out of town in the middle of the night raving about inbred, superstitious old hags, and the Colonel actually lighting the phone on fire that same afternoon, Havoc made a tidy sum from the pools.

It was almost the end of the day when Fullmetal came back to East City, stomped through East City Headquarter, slammed Mustang's office door closed, and proceeded to spaz at the man behind the desk. The staff couldn't hear much, even with Fullmetal yelling at the top of his lungs -- the walls of East City Headquarters were thick indeed, and there was money riding on Mustang using his office for inappropriate activities before, both during, and after work. What the staff did make out from the muffled voice only puzzled them, with words like: 'insane,' 'radish,' 'hags,' and 'vanilla,' just to name a few. Then, just as quick as it had landed, the Fullmetal Hurricane left headquarters to bury himself under a pile of books at the library.

Most of the staff worked overtime that night, though they were hard pressed to find actual work to do for the military. They stuck around not because they won something from the pools, but mostly because they were all curious about Fullmetal's latest assigment. Hawkeye finally looked up from typing Fullmetal's chicken scratch report, reading out the heavily edited, sans profanity and name calling edition.

"The riot was caused by two fortune tellers," a few staff members groaned with disappointment, "exact details aren't known, but it involved the town mayor and a prediction. No alchemy, cults, or mind altering drugs were involved in causing this mass hysteria, simply two old women who appear to have a lot of influence over the townspeople." The rest of the report that most of the staff wasn't privy to was left out, and a small line formed for people to collect their winnings.

After the last dollar was counted out, the office was mostly empty.

Havoc was just about to leave when he noticed the Colonel's office door was ajar, hearing the distinct sound of someone shuffling papers inside. Curiosity won over caution as he peeked inside the office and found the Colonel still working at his desk.

"It's Friday night, thought you would have left already for a date," Havoc commented, as he watched the Colonel flip through more papers.

"Come in and have a seat," Mustang said without looking up, "is the First Lieutenant still around?"

"Nope, I'm the last one."

"What do you think of this?" Mustang asked, giving Havoc a few files he had been looking through earlier.

Havoc read through the reports and shrugged, "Shouldn't missing people and random body parts turning up in dumpsters across town be under the regular unit's department instead of the State Alchemist's? Sounds like someone is still trying to set you up for that fall."

"Maybe," Mustang replied, "I was thinking of setting Fullmetal loose on this case to see what he could dredge up."

"So, how did he liked his last assignment?" Havoc asked with a grin.

"I doubt he thought it was an assignment at all, more like me sending him on a wild goose chase because I'm some evil smirking bastard."

"The boss probably did, he was loud enough about it earlier."

Mustang relaxed a little. "It was one of my better ideas, though it was a bit hard keeping it from Lieutenant Hawkeye."

"It wasn't that hard, though I do feel bad about letting her worry about the boss being in any real trouble," Havoc said, getting out of the chair to leave. "Besides, we flushed that rapist out of hiding. He probably thought the town would be crawling with military as soon as they heard their boy genius got kidnapped."

"By the way," Mustang said with a smirk, "I heard you won quite a bit from this pool, I don't think it could have happened without my help."

Havoc dug into his pocket and pulled out a fist full of bills. "You want half the take?"

"And from the last one," Mustang continued, "after all, it would be a shame if I had to discipline my entire staff for slander now wouldn't it?"

Havoc sighed as he stopped counting the bills and handed over the rest of his winnings. "You know Colonel, I sometimes wish the boys would hurry up and find what they're looking for. I'm tired of you taking my winnings all the time," he commented grudgingly, turning and stepping out of the office.


End file.
